Lost Souls

“Lost soul,

Forsaken of form,

Be thee rebound in body,

Be thee mended in spirit,

Be thee granted the power to return.”

These words echoed in Cloudkicker’s ears. She opened her eyes tentatively.

To her surprise, she found herself in a circular chamber that seemed to glow from within. Looking down, she could see herself warped in a reflection on the floor. In fact, it seemed all the surfaces were reflective. In some, the reflection scattered in a thousand pieces, so that thousands of her stared back.

It was also cold. Cloudkicker shivered, breath coming out in a fog.

“So… another soul has been trapped.” The voice was different than the first, and had a distinct mocking lilt to it. “Why, it’s almost a carnival around here.”

Looking up, Cloud saw a griffon perched upon a staircase that curved towards her. He was clad in chainmail, and an empty scabbard hung at his side. Of the griffon himself, he was a bland grey colour, and his emerald eyes peered uncomfortably at her. He seemed to have a glow about him.

“Who’re you?” she asked, voice rough from disuse.

“Me? I’m nobody. Just crestfallen.” He sniffed. “You seem to have enough life about you for the both of us… Hahaha.” The laugh, like his voice, was toneless and dead.

“I’m Cloudkicker,” she said, stretching out her foreleg to shake his claw. He simply shook his head.

“You’ll fit in better with the rest. Just pay me no mind. The others certainly don’t. But who cares? We’ll all be dead soon… Well, dead again.” He laughed that dead laugh again.

Cloud frowned, and turned to walk away from the crestfallen griffon. She hadn’t gotten far when a soft, lovely voice called out to her. The same voice she had heard when she first entered this strange place.

Down another staircase trotted a figure wrapped in a dark lavender robe. It was much taller than her, but it exuded a friendly aura.

“Thou art the lost soul we sensed,” she said. From under her hood, a strand of pink-gold hair dangled.

“Yeah? I guess. I’m Cloudkicker.” She raised her foreleg for a hoofshake but none came, once again.

“Thee have come… for what? Glory? The adventure? Or perhaps money? These three are in abundance, though hard-fought.”

“Who are you?” Cloud asked. The strange mare was starting to get on her nerves.

The tall mare paused to adjust a crystal. The crystal shone from within, much like the one Cloud had.

“Thou might call us the Caretaker. We keep this refuge and tend to the souls within.”

“That chant back there…” Cloud frowned. “Was that you?”

The mare nodded. “Thine form was dead when it passed to this realm. But now, life hath been given to it… Though, perhaps different.”

With a sigh, the pegasus replied, “Look, I hate this cryptic metaphor crap. That’s why I’ve never liked fantasy. What’s going on here, and why…”

The Caretaker raised a hoof to shush the pony. “Thou shalt find thine answers elsewhere. I am weary… we are weary. Find thy answers amongst the lost souls.”

With that, she turned and walked back up the stairs. As she did so, an amulet slipped from inside her cloak and swung around where Cloud could see it. It was a yin-yang of sorts: one half was a blazing sun, the other a cold, crescent moon.

Cloud filed this away for future reference, and looked around. She could hear hammering in the distance, and at a loss for anything else to do, followed the sound.

To her surprise, she found an aged buffalo sitting before an iron forge, hammering away at something out of her sight. He looked up at her.

“A new arrival,” he said. His voice was low and pleasing, with a faint accent to it. “I am Chief Quickshod. Or, I was chief.” He coughed. “What is there to be chief of other than bones?” He inclined his head towards the forge. “Now I smith. An ancient tradition that I, regrettably, am the only one to carry.”

Cloud dipped her head in acknowledgement at his being a chieftain – she’d learned that much in the wilds of Gryph. “I am Cloudkicker, humble knight-errant. Or I was… I think I died.”

Quickshod nodded. “Would it surprise you I died as well?” She shook her head. “Ah. Well. If you ever need smithing… Here I am!” He laughed uproariously. At her confused expression, he added, “What use is there in living in such a place if one cannot laugh?”

She smiled at that. “Very little I suppose.”

He nodded. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to leave me to my work. I’m fixing a necklace for Alex over there.”

Quickshod gestured, and her gaze followed his gesture to a donkey, who sat by a bundle of goods. Since she had been dismissed by the buffalo, she decided to walk over and talk to the donkey. He was asleep when she came over, but a gentle “Hello?” served fine to wake him.

“Hmm? Who’s there?” he asked. “Oh! A mare! And a pretty one at that.”

Cloud found she couldn’t help but blush.

“I be Alex the donkey. I take care of stuff, the type of things you want nothing more than to forget about. Land’s sake, you’ve got a lot. Let me take a load off of you.”

Before she could reply, he got up and pulled her saddlebags off. It was a gentle pull, and he began to go through them.

“Very interesting items you got here, missy. None that’ll do you good against the demons, no.”

“Demons?” Cloud’s ears pricked up at that.

“Oh, aye! You didn’t hear?”

“I’ve… been away.”

Alex shook his head. “Demons, lass. I don’t rightly know. One day, the world was right and beautiful. The next, foggy and corrupt.” He looked up from his examinations of the pearls and statues she had collected on her travels. “Truth be told, aside from the Witch, I might well be the only fellow here who wants to be here.”

“The Witch?” She pronounced it with a capital like he had.

“Dresses in purple, speaks like she’s a few thousand years out of date. Ye know her, I seen you talk.”

“You mean the Caretaker.”

“Caretaker says you, Witch says I. What other breed of creature has power over souls?”

Cloud found she had no answer to that.

“Ye know who would just love a visit? Martelé! You can’t miss her, she’s over by the Ocean.” He pointed in a far-off direction.

Cloud squinted, and could barely make out a pony’s figure. She said a goodbye to Alex, who was still digging through her stuff. She didn’t mind. Most of it was for… for her sister.

She paused, blinking back tears. Alula…

Cloudkicker shook her head. She couldn’t think of things like that. Not now. Surely her parents had left the country before the demons took Cloudsdale. If they had taken Cloudsdale at all. Maybe Cloudsdale was safe.

Taking in a deep breath, Cloud continued towards the figure. After a few short moments, she was at the side of a pony.

The pony was a soft blue colour, with a subdued purple mane that brightened to an almost pink. She looked over at Cloud, and Cloud noticed she had a violin at her feet.

“Is that a violin?” she asked. “Can you play?”

“I play,” the pony said softly. Her voice sounded sluggish, and had a cute Ponié lilt to it. “Not as well as others. Mainly I just look at the ocean, and wish I were there.”

Cloud followed the other mare’s gaze. The wall that stood before them seemed to be a window out to a fathomless, endless ocean.

“It’s lovely,” Cloud said.

“It is. Don’t you just wish you could go there? And suffocate in its depths?”

Now Cloud frowned at the other mare. “That’s, uh, that’s dark.”

“I’m a dark pony. Name’s Martelé. What’s yours?”

“Cloudkicker. I kick clouds. Or, at least, I used to. Now I guess I’m a knight. The Caretaker seemed to think I could do something about the demons. Do you know anything about them?”

Martelé’s eyes grew wide. “The demons. Merde. I spit on them!” To illustrate this, she spat on the floor. “They are vile, crude! And…” Her voice broke and her façade of bravado did as well. “And it was our fault they came. We dug too deep. Too deep for crystals.”

She wouldn’t talk anymore after that, no matter how much Cloud tried. Shrugging, she could only say goodbye to Martelé and leave.

After a few hours of wandering the Refuge, Cloud came across a curious sight: A robed unicorn with a thick beard.

“Hello!” She waved at him. “I’m Cloudkicker. Who’re you?”

The unicorn spun to face her, amber eyes aglow with excitement. “Ah! A new face. Yes, yes, come, come! I am Starburst! The Archmage!” He paused and looked her over. “You look in need of miracles, friend. See the zebra, or… Or the thing,” he added in disgust. “But don’t bother me! I’m doing experiments.”

He turned back to the table he had his experiment on and Cloud saw that his “experiment” was a crystal much like the one that hung at her side.

“What’s that crystal?” she ventured.

“Oh, nothing, nothing. Just a crystal, my pet. Now shoo, you’ll unbalance everything!”

Sighing, Cloud continued and saw that there was indeed a zebra nearby. The zebra sat at a makeshift altar, with a pony wrapped in brown beside her.

They exchanged greetings, and Cloud sat down.

The zebra was Zecora. Cloudkicker remembered her from Ponyville. She’d never really interacted with the zebra much, but it was comforting to have a familiar face around.

Prostra was the pony. She spoke so softly Cloud could hardly hear her. “Hello,” was all she had to say at the moment. Her features were covered by her hood, and her hooves were wrapped in the same brown cloth as her robe.

Zecora smiled. “I do nothing around here. Prostra does all the hard work, far and near.”

“I do,” chimed in Prostra. “Would you like a miracle?”

“I would if they can really help,” Cloudkicker said as she sat down in front of the altar. “Though I doubt they will.”

Prostra slipped a small cloth artifact shaped like a shuttlecock into Cloud’s hooves. Attached to it was a single slip of paper. “Simply hold this talisman and whisper this prayer. A miracle of healing will descend upon you.”

“Be wary when you pray,” Zecora warned. “For such a power will not stay, not for long. If you think otherwise you would be wrong.”

“So, what? It’ll diminish in power?” Cloud frowned. It didn’t sound like the healing miracle was worth the trouble.

“Well it’s meant to be miraculous,” Prostra said. “If something happens more than once it isn’t very miraculous is it? And the more you see it, the more mundane it appears.”

There was a long pause. Cloud examined the talisman, turning it over to see as much of it as she could. She pulled the slip of paper out. A short prayer was written on it in Old Equus. Cloud’s generation had been one of the last to have mandatory Old Equus classes, so she had no trouble reading it.

Finally, she decided to ask The Question: “What happened to Equestria? Why is it so messed up now?”

Zecora and Prostra exchanged glances. Then, Prostra spoke up.

“We… were in no position to see anything. Starburst would know.”

Cloud nodded, and stood. “Well, it’s been nice chatting with you girls.”

As they said their goodbyes, Cloud turned and started back for Starburst. It didn’t take long to reach him. In fact, it felt like the distance was less, though that certainly wasn’t possible.

When she found the aged magician, he was standing over a mess of powder. It took her a moment to realise the powder was actually the crystal from before.

“Starburst?”

He looked up at her. “You again. Well, the experiment is over. What do you need, child?”

“I need to know what happened to Equestria.”

Starburst sighed. “Sit down, sit down. It’s… it’s quite a tale, to be certain.”

She sat down and he began to tell his story.

“Shining Armor and Princess Cadance were married, you know this? Yes? Then you must also know of the return of the Crystal Empire.

“There was a treaty made between the land of Equestria and the Empire. The terms of this treaty were simple – the crystals mined in the Empire were to go to Equestria. And so they did. The crystals were harvested, and then sent to Equestria to be sold after refining.

“An era of enlightenment came upon the land. We built machines that rely on crystals. We used crystals to create magical catalysts so that even earth ponies could use the magic spells the crystals in the catalyst had ‘learned’.

“Oh yes, learned. The crystals had a strange connection to magic. With enough practise, one could focus certain spells and the crystal would retain the knowledge of how to use the spell. Then you simply held the catalyst and thought of the spell and whiffo! it worked.

“However, our greed soon got the better of us. To sate the growing demand for crystals, the crystal ponies dug deeper and deeper. They ended up digging too deeply and too greedily, and broke through to where nopony should travel. Tartarus.

“From the cracks to Tartarus, there rose a deep, colourless fog. Soon the fog devoured all of Equestria. Even the greatest magical light could barely pierce the fog.

“And from the fog rose demons, the greatest of which was their Queen. Taking many forms, they began their rampage upon the world, devouring what they came across. Buildings, ponies, souls… It didn’t matter with what they sated their appetite. Many of us fell to the demons, but others… Ah, others gave themselves to the demons. Thralls, we called them.

“Soon, the demons and their thralls worked their way to the heart of Equestria. The Elements of Harmony were useless against the Queen. I theorise some deep connection between the source of the fog and the Queen’s inexplicable defence against the Elements… but you’re interested in facts, not my theories.

“The Elements fell, and so did Canterlot. Of the princesses, I do not know. I was slain by a demon, and awoke here, under the care of that strange mare. She reminds me of somepony I used to know… Ah, but I am a foolish old stallion and prone to mistakes.”

Cloud had been spellbound by his tale, not moving a muscle until he showed signs he had finished. “That’s awful.” An understatement.

“Now dost thou understand why we ensnared thee?” asked the Caretaker.

Cloud turned around and saw the tall mare approaching them. She could see a glimmer of a pink eye from underneath the hood. “I think so. But I don’t think I’m well suited for the job.”

“Nopony truly is. But we see the threads of destiny enwrapt around thee, Cloudkicker.”

She only nodded in response to the Caretaker’s proclamation.

“If thou art ready, we shalt guide thee to thy destination.”

“What destination?” Cloud asked.

The Caretaker looked down at her, pink eyes quizzical. “The city of Canterlot. Thou shalt face thine first demon, and reclaim thine form.”

“Oh” was all Cloud could say. Despite all the warning bells in her mind, she followed the Caretaker. She had a destiny, after all.